However, this still leaves an Underpants Gnome-sized chasm3 at the core at the center of the California Parties’ argument: The California Parties completely failed to establish any causal connection between propositions 1 and 2.Id. at 8.
3 The industrious underpants-stealing gnomes were introduced to the world by the television program “South Park.” Famously, their business plan consists, in its entirety, of three stages: “Phase 1: Collect Underpants. Phase 2: ? Phase 3: Profit.” Wikipedia, Gnomes (South Park), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnomes_(South_Park) (last modified Jan. 2, 2010). The gnomes’ business plan have since become a byword for theories with large logical gaps of which their expositors appear to be blissfully unaware. See, e.g., Editorial, Obama and the ‘South Park’ Gnomes, The Wall Street Journal at A16 (May 26, 2009) (postulating that the television episode may “surpass[] Milton Friedman’s ‘Free to Choose’ as the classic defense of capitalism”); Ezra Klein, The Underpants Gnomes Theory of Single-Payer, The Washington Post Blog (June 26, 2009), http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/06/the_underpants_gnomes_theory_o.html. So too here: The California Parties proceed, as if blissfully unaware, to propound a theory in this case that totally lacks any causal connection—or even any attempt to draw a causal connection—between the successive steps of argument. In actuality, of course, the California Parties are keenly aware of these fatal flaws but apparently have no choice other than to pretend that they simply are not there.
Update on July 12, 2010: FERC adopted the position argued in the brief and dismissed all claims by California against my client and even went on to quote the underpants gnomes. Initial Decision on Motions for Summary Disposition at P 221.
